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'Halo 4' And The Impossible Quest For Novelty And Wonder

Halo 4 is a strong game that does a good job staying true to the Halo franchise while not shrinking away from innovations – but the novelty of the series wore off a long time ago.

The first time I played Halo felt a little bit like the first time I played DOOM or the first time I played Half-Life 2. Actually, it reminds me a little bit of the first time I played Super Mario Bros.

This was something new – perhaps not revolutionary, but new enough to have me hooked. There was something about gazing up at the Halo itself, at that distant ring in the sky, that gave the game a new kind of scope and grandeur I hadn’t encountered before.

Several hours deep into Halo 4 and there’s no denying it’s a good game, and almost certainly the best looking of the franchise (and one of the best looking games ever released on Xbox 360.)

Everything from the cut-scenes to the shooting mechanics to the voice-acting is perfectly solid. 343 Industries took the reins from Bungie and made what’s shaping up to be one of the best Halo games in years.

But the thrill is gone.

Perhaps this says more about age and experience than about Halo 4; or perhaps it merely points to the perils any long-running franchise faces eventually.

Whatever the case, that sense of awe and wonder I experienced during my first time with Halo aren’t coming back.

I don’t think this is actually a matter of innovation vs. staying true to the game’s mechanics and spirit. Some have criticized Halo 4 for not pushing the envelope while at the same time admitting that 343 Industries is in a real bind introducing anything new and potentially game-breaking.

No, it’s not for lack of innovation. New weapons, new enemies – these things work well enough. The game feels overhauled in subtle ways as well; vehicles feel more maneuverable than in past titles, for instance.

What’s missing is the novelty of the first game. And novelty isn’t something you can program back into a franchise after so many years. The missing piece was bound to be missing and 343 Industries essentially had no way of getting it back.

Tangentially, this makes me wonder how much age and experience play a role in how reviews are not only written but received.

Take XCOM: Enemy Unknown, for instance. As someone who never played the original, I found the remake a highly addictive, extremely fun game that played just about perfectly.

But had I been a bit older, or had I happened to play the original X-COM, my opinion might have varied. What was novel and exciting would have become a deviation from the original and quite possibly not merely a disappointment but just…no big deal. Nothing new.

Very few games evoke a sense of wonder in me these days; often the ones that do are indie titles that take risks, but just as often that novelty can be little more than a thin veneer covering up a gimmick.

New isn’t always better, which is why so many people tend to fall head over heels for “old-school” games. Both novelty and nostalgia can work together, and were certainly both at play when I began playing Dark Souls for the first time. Conversely, a game like Spec Ops: The Line hit me so hard because it was at once a new level of storytelling in video games and a throwback to films like Apocalypse Now and the Joseph Conrad novella, Heart of Darkness.

From what I’ve played of Halo 4 so far, it’s a solid title with a reasonable balance between staying true to the franchise and trying new things.

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i see what u mean iv had that feeling before with alot of games i played like gauntlet legends. but its been times with other games…well just one which is halo where thinsg never get old and i still look at every moment of the game with wide puppy dog eyes. Halo is what got me hooked on games in the first place so to me its only been getting better. im sure theres alot of people who have that one game that they will always buy and be amazed by (unless it gets totally f***** over) with every new edition or title that comes out.

I think the first thing I noticed about this article is that it is in no way a review of Halo 4. First and foremost it is a cynical reaction to your own nostalgia. While it isn’t as cliche as directly saying “games used to be better when it wasn’t about the graphics and upgrades” it has a similar vibe in a round about way. That said, this is probably the most interesting read on halo 4 I’v seen yet. When games stop evoking a sense of wonder you need to do what I did and stop playing them for a year. Your issue doesn’t lie with halo 4, (despite being the topic of this article) it lies with all games in general. Because of this it has little to do with the games themselves and more to do with your own growing need for gratification.

No, it’s most certainly not a review of Halo 4 (nor do I ever claim it as such.) Nor am I claiming that games used to be better – I’m not convinced they did at all, and many of my favorite games have come out within the last two or three years.

But yours isn’t a bad suggestion. Taking a break can be very helpful in rekindling some magic, though it can also lead to a long list of games you need to catch up on…

I agree and disagree. At this point in my life, I have the time and means to play most of the games I want to play. All that’s done is make me less impressed with videogames. It isn’t like when I was a kid and had to wait until Christmas to get the one or two games I desperately wanted, and then ride those games until the wheels fall off.

But at the same time we are talking about the fourth entry of this series, (really the fifth because Halo: Reach is a typical Halo game). I don’t think it takes any stretch of the imagination to imagine that the series could be objectively losing its luster. The game industry seems to be turning into the movie industry. Where remakes and sequels trump original IP’s. I don’t know how such a model can result in anything except making a medium stale.

What would have blown us away 3 years ago might get short-changed present day, but that isn’t always the fault of the viewer. Risk-taking matters. Freshness matters.

IGN gave the game a 9.8/10 and said it was the best game of the year. I believe that Forbes should NOT review games.period. Most of the information your correspondent(NOT EVEN A STAFF WRITER), is misguided or just completely wrong. It seems like he didn’t play the previous games or play Halo 4 at all. Seems he just was told to write a review and did.

You’re asserting that because IGN gave the game a 9.8, it must be the greatest game ever?

Nevermind the fact that IGN is the website that started the whole “Entitled gamer” thing when ME3 was questioned. IGN is the website that had it’s own employee work for EA in making ME3, then gave it a high score, and then attacked Gamers.

IGN is the website that was recently banned for allegedly trying to manipulate Reddit.

IGN is the website that prostitutes itself to advertisers to such an incredibly high degree that it actually has it’s own meme.

Is that the IGN you’re stating gives valid reviews? Before you answer, go to Metacritic and look at IGN’s reviews. There’s ~35 pages of games with review scores IGN gave greater than 90, which looks to be around 3,500 games (I’m not counting them all).

Do you seriously trust a site that has said 3,500 times “This is one of the greatest games ever and you cannot miss this one!”?

Okay, setting aside the ludicrous notion that IGN holds some magical decoder ring that helps them determine which games are good better than anyone else, I’d love for you to just specify exactly the information that is “miguided or just completely wrong” in this piece. Seriously, I want it listed out.

Of course, this isn’t a review of the game. It’s just a…brief musing on the game and other games and the question of how novelty and nostalgia figure into our appreciation of games. I know those are big words (for a correspondent/ NOT EVEN A STAFF WRITER – DEAR GOD!) but hey, we all have to start somewhere.

I never said best game ever, I was just quoting what they said from their review, which was , “best game of the year.” OXM gave the game a 9/10, Gamespot gave it a 9/10, G4 gave it a 4.5/5, Joystiq gave it a 5/5. I will gladly inform you of the misguided and incorrect information.

#1-He stated that the campaign was “more or less target practice for multiplayer mode, and gets players familiar with new weapons and upgrades in the game before seeing them out on the Team Slayer battlefields. Oh, and there’s a story too.” I take this as offense due to the shear vastness of the universe that Microsoft created specifically for the series. He even goes to state that, “Halo has never really shined when it’s come to the plot of its campaigns.” while Halo HAS won countless awards for it’s compelling story lines and plots.

#2-He calls the voice acting and the script “by far the worst either has ever been in the series.” EVER other review for Halo 4 has stated the voice acting is some of THE best ever heard. As i continued to read this article, it seems more and more clear to me that Forbes made someone unfamiliar with the series review it. Of course your won’t like the sequel to a game you’re not familiar with in the first place. I’m not even asking him to be a fan, but just to be familiar with the franchise.

#3-”There are flying support robots that should be taken out first to make battles go easier. There are dog-like creatures that gallop around on all fours while still managing to somehow shoot pistols at you” This sentence right here proves my point exactly. HE DOESN’T EVEN STATE THE NAMES OF THESE NEW ENEMIES! Not once in the article besides the Promethean Knights. He doesn’t KNOW that the dog-like creatures are called Crawlers and the “support robots” are called Watchers. I knew this without even playing the game and you’re telling me this guy DID play it? Yea, sure, okay.

#4-He also states that you MUST install the second disc to play multiplayer. That’s wrong and Microsoft has stated this hundreds of times. it is RECOMMENDED to install it, not a requirement. He goes on to state that the new “Spartan Ops” mode was stolen from Call of Duty. NO SUCH THING HAS EVER BEEN CREATED BEFORE. He doesn’t know that it’s a season long split campaign. I think he believes it’s something like COD’s zombie mode or specs ops, but I’m not really sure. Even Call of Duty’s zombie mode was taken from Gears of War’s Horde mode. If he is speaking about Spec Ops, he’s never played Spec Ops. Spec Ops just lets you play through a 5 minute mission with ZERO back story and there’s only about 10 of them total. Spartan Ops comes with 50 missions and that’s just for the first season. Spartan Ops is a branching campaign that TIES IN with the regular campaign. Spec Ops doesn’t do that with COD. He goes on to state that in multiplayer you get a majority of kills with your starting weapon. Anyone who has played Halo can tell you that this is completely FALSE.